I hate the new structure - and I can't see how its a good deal for New Zealand in the slightest. I really don't know how much longer we can continue being a great international rugby country when we only have 5 teams playing top level rugby.

My preference would have been for the Air NZ Cup, Curry Cup & whatever domestic competition Australia can invent to be played all at the same time, with Champions League type competitions running at the same time.

It works in the Northern Hemisphere, and is great for football, so why do we have to reinvent a competition structure?

The continued running down of the Air New Zealand Cup and provincial rugby in New Zealand still doesn't end - this won't be good for grassroots rugby at all, but the the whole "Super" concept hasn't been good for that either.....

Let's concentrate even more money and emphasis on 5 teams, and ignore everyone else, that'll work.....

I just know that, despite all the good ideas for names, Tauranga will still end up with something dumb like the Steamers...

I thought they were from Cleveland?

I'd have though that Tauranga's team might be called The Zimmer Frames or The Tauranga Sprawl. I guess that some cities will have to have several teams representing different suburbs or neighbourhoods. Who's keen to see The Te Aro Macchiatos vs The Karori Pajeros?

I'm struggling to understand how the NZRU swallowed any of it. Had they already decided that the Air NZ Cup was a gonner? I understood the S14 struggled to make any money (as does the NPC) but by focusing on (what I assume is the big earner) All Black tests, they have cut the game off at the knees.

NZ's heroic ability to replace seemingly irreplaceable players in the past (Michael Jones past it? Here's Josh Kronfeld) will wither & die if we reduce the opportunities for players to play top level rugby (witness our problems with providing real career opportunities for coaches already)

Meh. That's the bit I could have quite happily had reduced. 6 games was fine, 9 is silly.

Especially when we seem to be adding what is currently a fourth Bledisloe match to be held overseas anyway.

Frankly, I think it would be acceptable to play a Bledisloe decider outside of the Tri-Nations (And restrict the Tri-Nations to 6 games). Whether we really want that to be in Tokyo/Hong Kong/Denver instead of Brisbane or Wellington is another matter entirely.

The new season looks ridiculous, and we're still stuck with weakened Northern teams each June while they get to milk the profits from top-quality AB/SA/Australian sides in November.

I predict that the Air New Zealand Cup will collapse under this arrangement. Who wants to sponsor a competition which not only doesn't have any All Blacks, but has all the Super 15 players out for the first rounds (and we all know that after seven months of rugby they'll all make excuses to be away anyway)?

This arrange means the end of first class rugby outside the five super franchises. And with that, the final destruction of the New Zealand game.

Since this Super competition is fundamentally a real mess, and is rugby inferior as a simple marketable entertainment to the NRL, the death by neglect of provincial rugby and its loyalties will see rugby league the number one spectator sport in NZ by 2020.

Since New Zealand rugby will then be built on foundations of sand, and collapse of the All Blacks to second nation status can't be far behind that.